"Nor did I, till I came to this horrible house!" she whispered. "Oh, Laurie, what are you going to do?" for he had drawn her arms from his neck and was pushing her hurriedly into a chair.
"I shall speak to the ghost," he whispered, and darted down the flowery vista.
There was a stifled shriek, a flutter of garments. The ghost fled into the outer darkness, and Laurie Meredith after it.
Jewel sat quaking in her chair, thinking in terror:
"Ah, what if it should lead him into the old cellar, and he should discover my awful secret?"
At that moment a woman's shrill, frightened cry became audible, a moment later the voice of a man:
"Who are you, playing ghost like this, and frightening helpless women out of their senses? You need not struggle, for I am going to unmask you."
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
The pretty ghost was quite strong. It struggled desperately out there in the darkness, but it was no match for Laurie Meredith, and presently he dragged it triumphantly into the conservatory, and tore from it a wig of fair hair and a white complexion mask. This revealed the pretty, flustered face of Jewel's maid, who, in a spangled tarletan dress and wig and mask, had made an ethereal-looking ghost.